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On February 25, 2025, the Rotary Club of Westwood Village Rotary was honored with a visit from the 2025/2026 Rotary International President-Elect, Mario Cesar Martins de Camargo from the Rotary Club of Santo Andre, Sao Paulo, Brazil. He was escorted to the meeting by PDG Makiko Nakasone who introduced him. She told us he speaks five languages and during Covid obtained his law degree! He is quite a successful man both in his private life as well as, his Rotary life. He has also traveled the world meeting some powerful people and some of the poorest people. He wants to be regarded as an “open door” President, especially with all Rotarians at the Club level.
President-Elect Mario, also known as Super Mario or Rotary Mario told us how important all Rotarians are as they are volunteers around the world doing good that large donors such as the Gates Foundation like to provide financial support to. The Gates Foundation has the money, Rotary has the hands-on volunteers to get the work done. One of his focuses this year will be on membership especially in the US and Canada which has for several years now been losing members. He is asking Clubs to keep an open mind and think outside of the box on obtaining new members. It is a new world and the young do not have the time for long lunch meetings during the day. He suggests Clubs think of new ways (perhaps a Satellite club) flexibility for the younger generation.
Although President-Elect Mario arrived late to the party, it was well worth the wait. He is charming, easy to relate to, Rotary focused and persistent to succeed. Afterall, he applied for the Rotary International President’s position for the last three years!
Thank you PDG Makiko for arranging this wonderful visit and in joining our Club in welcoming President-Elect Mario.
February 20th President Benjamin started the meeting on time by thanking Janet Schwarts for greeting, PP Ed Jackson for leading the pledge, PP Ron Lyster for his “Thought of the Day” on gratitude. He quoted Albert Schweitzer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oprah Winfrey and the favorite, Doris Day who said, “Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.” PP Ed Gauld led the Club in singing “Clementine”
Guests today included the speaker’s assistant, Michelle and, Rotaractor, Zack Foster.
President Benjamin then spoke on a recent Club project, Safe Sifting where 150 sifters, 100 shovels and 300 buckets were provided to wildfire impacted families so they could return to their properties to see if anything could be found and/or salvaged. Other announcements were then made and are listed below.
The speaker was then introduced by President Benjamin where we learned he is the President’s ophthalmologist and, that "Dr. Shawn Lin is a board-certified Ophthalmologist specializing in Cataract and Refractive Surgery (LASIK / PRK). He is a full-time faculty member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA. Dr. Lin graduated from Stanford Medical School and completed surgical training at Harvard and UCLA. He sees patients at UCLA Westwood and UCLA Calabasas, where he serves as the medical director. He began his presentation by telling us he would be addressing the future of AI in medicine.
Dr. Lin is a fan of AI and tells us robots are not scary; UCLA medicine is currently experimenting with three, at least one as a scribe in radiology. He explained although their spelling may not be great, they are good for administrative duties and when needed steady hand during surgery. AI can also monitor vitals during surgery helping to free up time so Doctors can focus more time on their patients. He believes they will be used in the next 1-2 years on videos patients can access to have questions answered. Dr. Lin agrees these videos will need to be authenticated as currently it is easy for anyone to make a video using AI that may be false information.
Dr. Lin is very positive about the future of AI in medicine. No one, however, got the question in on what happens to the currently employed humans doing the jobs AI may take over? Will robots replace humans or are they meant to work alongside them? Hmmm, food or thought.
It was a remarkably interesting and well-done presentation.
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